American Empire and the Politics of Meaning

When the United States took control of the Philippines and Puerto Rico in the wake of the Spanish-American War, it declared that it would transform its new colonies through lessons in self-government and the ways of American-style democracy. In both territories, U.S. colonial officials built extensive public school systems, and they set up American-style elections and governmental institutions. The officials aimed their lessons in democratic government at the political elite: the relatively small class of the wealthy, educated, and politically powerful within each colony. While they retained ultimate control for themselves, the Americans let the elite vote, hold local office, and formulate legislation in national assemblies. American Empire and the Politics of Meaning is an examination of how these efforts to provide the elite of Puerto Rico and the Philippines a practical education in self-government played out on the ground in the early years of American colonial rule, from 1898 until 1912. It is the first systematic comparative analysis of these early exercises in American imperial power. The sociologist Julian Go unravels how American authorities used “culture” as both a tool and a target of rule, and how the Puerto Rican and Philippine elite received, creatively engaged, and sometimes silently subverted the Americans’ ostensibly benign intentions. Rather than finding that the attempt to transplant American-style democracy led to incommensurable “culture clashes,” Go assesses complex processes of cultural accommodation and transformation. By combining rich historical detail with broader theories of meaning, culture, and colonialism, he provides an innovative study of the hidden intersections of political power and cultural meaning-making in America’s earliest overseas empire.

“American Empire does provide valuable insight into how colonial elites received and internalized a particular aspect of America’s imperial project.” - William A. Morgan, Latin American Politics and Society, “Julian Go has made a significant contribution to the study of the too rarely examined American empire, and imperial encounters generally, as well as to comparative cultural theory. . . . Go’s study not only creatively employs semiotics, but it is also well informed by the secondary literature and relevant documentary collections.” - Frederick F. Travis, Journal of American History, “Go’s American Empire makes an important contribution to debates over imperialism. . . . [B]y focusing on local experience during U.S. occupation, [Go] places American empire in a global framework. . . . Instead of attempting to internationalize U.S. history by emphasizing novel groups or ideas that Americans encountered abroad, Go turns the table on the debate by delineating how U.S. ideals, signs, and practices affected change and were changed abroad by ‘others.’ For these reasons, I would recommend students of imperialism, cultural theory, postcolonial theory, amongst others, consider adding Go’s American Empire to their reading lists.” - Maureen Mahoney, H-Net Reviews, “Go has developed a brilliant schema for studying and categorizing the political and cultural development of elite politics in Puerto Rico and the Philippines during the early years of American rule.” - LELAND CONLEY BARROWS, Interventions, “An important contribution of this book is the extensive genealogy Go offers of key ideological constructs in the political culture of the governing classes in the U. S., the Philippines, and Puerto Rico. . . . [A]ll students of imperial formations should seriously engage Go’s text as he leads us toward promising and productive lines of inquiry.” - Ileana María Rodríguez-Silva, A Contracorriente

Julian Go is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Boston University. He is a coeditor of The American Colonial State in the Philippines: Global Perspectives, also published by Duke University Press.